Trip Report "It's Feeling Too People-y Out Here"

I'm back from California and ready to report! Our December trip is only 48 days away, so my goal is to finish this TR before the next one begins.

Let the fun begin!

When: October 11-15, 2024
Where: Disneyland and Disney California Adventure
Who: Me (Annie) and my husband (Ian)
Why: Our 5-year wedding anniversary! Also, Ian had been working in San Diego for a month and I was so burnt out on solo parenting my almost 3-year-old back home. I really really needed a break!

Here we go...

This trip started out with a whole bunch of stress. The week before I left was crazy with work and school. I had work events every night, along with classes for my PhD and projects due. All while juggling my threenager all on my own

I had booked an early Friday morning flight out to San Diego for this trip. I work remotely on Thursdays, so it was perfect. Nora goes to daycare on Thursdays, so I planned to pack and get ready between meetings.

Nora had other plans.

I got her up for school on Thursday morning and she could hardly breathe. She was sobbing through barely breathing and couldn't calm down. I immediately called out of work and took her to urgent care.

She ended up getting a steroid breathing treatment and leaving with a diagnosis of croup.

Such a trooper. The breathing treatment helped but she still sounded so awful. Spoiler alert, I got home last night and she still sounds pretty bad my poor baby.

Once we got home my mom came over so I could pack and do some work like I had planned. I ran to the store to get some travel items and my mom guilt came out in full force. I got Nora a little present for being so good at the doctor.

She loved it!

The doctor recommended getting outside for some cold air for her lungs, so we did just that.

And caught the Northern Lights!

It was a SUPER stressful day and the guilt really was eating me alive, but I knew my parents could handle caring for Nora and would keep me up to date of any changes.

Friday morning my dad picked me up at 3 AM to head to Boston

Security was pretty uneventful. I first flew to Philly, then Philly to San Diego.

I had a window seat and watched movies/read my book until my 6 hours were up.

Finally made it!

To be continued...

 

[annienevells]

Some atmosphere photos on our way to Pixar Pier.

We made it through the line quickly with our LL!

And what did we think?

LOVED IT. Like truly, felt like little kids giggling, loved it. We booked a LL next for the regular operating version of Guardians, but it wasn't for a bit.

We wanted to head to Toy Story Mania next, but it was down.

We spotted Buzz on our way through.

We decided to go for a quick ride on the Pal-a-Round, and went on the swinging version.

Another win for us!

We needed a nutritious breakfast... how about rice crispies?

In treat form

These hit the spot but turned our mouths black

 

[annienevells]

On our way out of Pixar Pier, we noticed that Incredicoaster had a 15-minute wait. Count us in!

Except... it did not take 15 minutes. 15 turned to 20, turned to 30, up to 45 before we made it FINALLY ready to board.

We were next up!!

......

And the ride shut down. Everyone was sent out with a promise that it would not open a second sooner than 1 hour.

Boooooooo

Everyone exiting was given a LL multi experience pass at least, but a big time suck regardless.

We decided to head toward our next LL at Guardians, but had a little photoshoot first.

We couldn't resist riding Mater first though!

We were giggling like crazy on this. It has SO much more whip to it compared to A.S.S. at HS.

After our quick ride, we headed toward Guardians!

The regular operating version is so much better than the "After Dark" version IMO.

 

[annienevells]

Despite our failed second attempt at riding Incredicoaster, we had such a fun morning. The weather was beautiful, DCA was a million times less PEOPLE-Y than Disneyland, and we just had a blast.

Mindful of our happy demeanors, we decided now would be the time for an afternoon break before we pushed ourselves too far.

Bye DCA!

We grabbed an Uber back to our hotel and during our ride I ordered us Jersey Mikes on Uber Eats. Ian got some kind of sub, and I got sub in tub! It was delicious to eat out by the pool with my book (and no troubling hot tub incidents occurring)

After a restful break, we headed back for our DL evening (this was the Oogie Boogie Bash night. ENORMOUS line outside DCA when we arrived around 4).

During our break I had been able to stack some LL plus still had our multi experience from earlier.

Still sooooo many people.

We headed to our Pirates LL first!

We love chatting about the differences between DL and WDW on certain rides. We think DL wins the Pirates war!

While we were in line for Pirates, I made a gametime decision secretly. When we exited Pirates, I looked at Ian and said "happy anniversary!" and showed him my phone.

I booked us an ILL for Rise! Happening now! He was super excited, as we love Rise at WDW

We made the loooooong trek to Galaxy's Edge.

First, we took a ride on Smuggler's Run as it was only a 20 minute wait. We were assigned gunners and enjoyed ourselves.

Now on to RISE.

We made it all the way to almost boarding AGAIN and the ride shut down with an estimate of 2 hours. We were once again given LL to return to ride RISE or another attraction.

My goal this evening was to be out of DL BEFORE Fantasmic and fireworks because it was so people-y the night before. I told Ian I preferred to talk to GR to get a refund instead. The CMs outside Rise told us that many GR locations were not available today, so recommended going to Main St.

Okay.. time for the long haul.

We fought the most dense crowds of people back to Main St. Over the past couple of days, Indiana Jones had been closed at nearly all times. When we were fighting the crowds walking past it, it opened up!! I grabbed Ian and said LET'S GO!!

We only waited maybe 15 minutes and were SO excited we made it on! We were convinced Indy would not happen on this trip.

 

[annienevells]

Riding our high from Indy, we went off to find GR on Main Street.

We found them and the refund process was quick and simple.

Moving on!

We grabbed a treat before our next LL.

And spotted Malificent.

Where was our next LL to?

We had been avoiding Matterhorn because every previous trip we have ended up SOAKED.

We did not suffer the same fate this time around luckily!

Ian's next request was teacups, count me in!

Note my lack of sweatshirt this evening. I definitely needed one, but we had plans to buy our new sweatshirts from the shop outside MMRR.

After our spin, we headed off to make our purchase.

My one zoomed in photo of Small World as it was under refurbishment!

We made it to buy our sweatshirts and.... the one I LOVED was only available in 3X. I was super sad because I really loved the one I found. I told Ian it was disappointing because over the last couple of years I've lost a good amount of weight. It seemed like when I was heavier I could NEVER find extended sizes, and yet now that I am smaller I can't find smaller sizes.

Ian had luck with his sweatshirt selection, but he felt badly for me.

I do love the one he chose though!

 

[annienevells]

A little dejected, we headed to our next LL. I was VERY excited to ride BTMRR at night.

So fun in the dark!

After Big Thunder, I saw that Rise was back open. And... our LL multi experience which included Rise was still on our account despite the refund!

I looked at Ian and he said LET'S DO THIS

We were successfully able to ride this time around and loved it just as much as we do at WDW.

On our way out, we went through every store on Main St to look for a sweatshirt for me with no luck

We eased my pain with some popcorn before heading out.

And I was truly FREEZING so I got to wear Ian's new sweatshirt for the walk home.

Despite a few bumps, we had SUCH a great day and were feeling sad it was already almost over.

 

[annienevells]

PS - 33 days until our WDW trip!!

 

[annienevells]

Updating my TR is a good distraction right now...

OUR LAST (half) DAY

We got up a little extra early on our final day (Monday, which was Indigenous Peoples Day) to pack up and check out.

We got the car loaded up, confirmed we could stay parked at the hotel, and headed out in our Uber.

I had changed our park reservation the night before from DL to DCA. The crowd levels at DL this trip were just brutal and we had much more fun and enjoyment at DCA!

Entered the gates just after 7.

As we moved toward our holding corral, I booked us Incredicoaster first thing!

We weren't directly at the rope this time, but pretty close!

We played some "I Spy" for the 30 minutes of waiting for RD.

The crowds were packing in behind us.

We followed our same plan - head directly to Racers and the single ride lane!

More running and aggression from others guests again on this day, but we made it on (separate) cars by 8:05!

MAN, we just love this ride so much

We grabbed a quick self-timer photo on top of a trashcan (LOL) before heading back to Pixar Pier!

 

[erstwo]

Reading this Trip Report is a good distraction right now.

 

[CAlvares]

It’s always a little jarring to see the crowds! Thank you for sharing, it’s truly a nice distraction.

 

[luvinthemajik]

Reading this Trip Report is a good distraction right now.

Amen!!

 

[Tuvalu]

Radiator Springs Racers is my #1 favorite Disney ride!

 

[annienevells]

Happy faces! The weather was chilly but we were comfy in our sweatshirts. SOME OF US had on a brand new sweatshirt....

We headed for Incredicoaster which had basically NO wait. We decided to quickly jump on single rider.

Then we used our LL to ride together.

Time for an Incredicoaster break. Midway Mania was open for the first time all weekend!

Sorry for the closed eye photo, Potato Head!

We waited about 30 minutes, but it wasn't too bad.

Ian always crushes me at these, but I actually won for once! And gloated all day.

 

[annienevells]

We grabbed a LL for Monsters, Inc but decided we needed ONE MORE ride on Incredicoaster

We were giddy from riding to many times and our adrenaline was rushing.

We helped ourselves to a cookie and it was SO GOOD.

Satisfied with our Pixar Pier adventures, we headed toward Monsters.

We decided to make a quick PhilharMagic stop. This is much better at WDW, but still lots of fun.

On to our LL!

I love these snacks, especially the Bag O Calories.

After Monsters, we had one last LL for Soarin'!

We knew we couldn't drag out our visit all day because we still had to make the drive back to San Diego

We said goodbye to DCA. Well, it's not goodbye it's see you later!

I REALLY wanted to find a sweatshirt, so we make a quick stop at World of Disney.

With no luck AGAIN. My goal for our December trip is to buy no less than TWO new sweatshirts lol

After our fail, we needed one last dusting of pixie dust, so we headed into DL to get a snack.

 

[annienevells]

I got the jalapeno cheese pretzel, and Ian got the classic Mickey.

After our snacks we made our sad farewells. They weren't TOO sad, because our trip in December will be here before we know it!!

Our ride back to San Diego was pretty uneventful and moved quickly.

When we returned, Ian took a nap and I ate some leftover popcorn by the pool.

We spent our last night taking in some of our favorite spots on the naval shipyard.

Ian was craving Cheesecake Factory, so that was our last supper.

It was an amazing opportunity to be able to do this trip with Ian for our anniversary. We missed Nora but had such a great time.

We always get an ornament on each trip, this was the version for DL/DCA 2024.

And I got big hugs when I got home!

 

[annienevells]

26 days until our December trip!

Here's some Little Mermaid Halloween cuteness in the meantime!

 

[Wicked Sisters]

26 days until our December trip!

Here's some Little Mermaid Halloween cuteness in the meantime!

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What a great photo and love your dog as flounder

 

[Swissmiss]

Thanks for the TR and the bonus Halloween pictures

 

[cgersic]

Wow those Halloween pictures!!! You all did GREAT! This was such a fun trip to take along with you. I cannot wait for my first trip to Disneyland! Looking really forward to the next one.